Meredith Goldsmith

Map Examples

The two map links below provide different ways of exploring The Age of Innocence spatially. What you’ll see is that the QGIS maps affords much more detail on the level of the map–the characters are differentiated by color and size and you can turn layers on and off if you wish to explore characters’ movements in comparison, or drop characters out to focus on others in detail. In addition, the QGIS map contains historic maps overlaid on the base maps; we’re not simply observing character movement in New York, we’re observing it in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century New York.

Here’s a QGIS map. The characters are differentiated by color and size and you can turn layers on and off if you wish to explore characters’ movements in comparison, or drop characters out to focus on others in detail. In addition, the QGIS map contains historic maps overlaid on the base maps; we’re not simply observing character movement in New York, we’re observing it in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century New York. The navigation bar on your left allows you to move to different locations in the novel.

Here’s a CartoDB map. CartoDB will allow you to build much faster, and makes it easier to include annotations. However, it doesn’t allow you to import historic maps, which eliminates the element of historical context the QGIS map brings to the novel.